


To Catch a Thief

by throughdarkness



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-19
Updated: 2012-07-19
Packaged: 2017-11-10 07:00:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/throughdarkness/pseuds/throughdarkness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Eliot realizes Parker's been sneaking around his apartment, he sets out to find out why and gets a surprising answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Catch a Thief

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage, Parker, Eliot or anything you see here. This was written for a prompt from the prompt-a-thon at the Parker Eliot Livejournal community, posted by rozabellalove: It’s a very distinctive perfume. I don’t usually write MA/NC17, so feedback would be much appreciated.

Eliot trudged in through the door of his house in the early hours of the morning, rubbing his eyes. He was sore everywhere and damn sure that the majority of his chest and back would be purple in the morning from bruises.

  
He wandered into the bathroom without turning on any of the hall lights, and winced when he flicked the bathroom switch. He had a huge gash on down his cheek from where he’d fallen on the rocks at the bottom of the ravine they were performing “research” in to prove that the soil was being used for chemical dumps and it was killing off the farmers’ crops down the road. Nate was just about ready to pull them all out when a handful of pissed off guys showed up, courtesy of GoodGro fertilizer.

  
The ex-FBI agents hadn’t been too much of a problem, but lackey #3 was ex-SWAT and he put up a tough fight, including throwing Eliot over the ridge, into several trees and onto a massive pile of rocks which hurt like a bitch.

  
Nate had the evidence he needed, so they cleared out after Eliot finished with the guys. Now he was just tired and cranky. He stripped down, leaving his clothes in a pile in the corner of his bathroom, hopping into the shower. He groaned when the hot spray landed on his back and relaxed as blood and dirt ran off of him.

  
When he was sufficiently clean, he climbed out of the shower slowly and towel dried himself, not bothering with the clothes in the corner. He’d probably have to throw out the shirt, but he’d stitch up any tears in the jeans, no use throwing out a good pair of pants.

  
The hitter turned off the light in the bathroom and didn’t bother with another one, he just walked down the hall to his bedroom and threw himself into bed.  
He expected to fall asleep the second he hit the pillow, but something wasn’t right.

  
It took a minute to register, but then he realized that his pillow smelled funny.

  
Not bad, just different than the usual whatever Eliot smelled like. He pulled his head up and smelled again, concentrating more this time.  
Jasmine, vanilla and...he took a third whiff...grapefruit?

  
He rolled over, trying to remember what those three scents combined to make. It hit him and he groaned. After all, she had a very distinctive scent.  
-x-

  
The next day, he set up devising a plan as to how to catch her doing...whatever the hell it was she was doing in his bed. That is, if she was going to do it again. Which he assumed she was, because now that he was more aware of it, he noticed the scent in his living room, his main hall closet and for some inexplicable reason, the workout room in his basement.

  
Nate called them in to debrief and go over the wrap-up of the job, so he headed over after breakfast to find Nate and Sophie drinking coffee at the table while Nate flicked through the table, Parker eating cereal and Hardison typing away on his laptop. Thankfully, Nate didn’t have another client lined up for them, so he had time to execute the plan.

  
He nudged Hardison. “Hey man, found this new bar. Wanna grab a couple beers later?” Hardison shrugged. “First round’s on me,” he said and leaned over, adding louder than he needed to, “man, the girls at this place are insane.”

  
He caught Parker’s small pout and the way it quickly disappeared. He told Hardison he’d see him up at 9 and headed out.

  
Eliot spent the rest of the day poking around in his garden. It’d taken him a long time to find a house he didn’t hate that was close enough to work that he could drive there and back everyday but still had enough space for a decent sized vegetable patch in the back. He had a nice garden, roughly 10 feet by 16 feet out back, rows of all kinds of vegetables. So he watered, weeded, poked and picked at his various fruits and veggies, bringing in a nice haul for the fridge.

  
Making dinner calmed him and distracted him from thinking about what he would find later. After he ate, he took a quick shower and put on a red button up shirt over a white wife beater and some jeans. He tied up his boots, locked up and drove out to meet Hardison.

  
He did in fact have a new bar to take the hacker to, and he’d scribbled the name of the place and the area on a piece of paper before he’d left Nate’s. He got a text message from Hardison saying he’d meet him there.

  
It was a nice bar, low key during the week, drawing decent crowds on the weekends. Tonight was Ladies Night, which just worked out perfectly for him. He found Hardison easily enough, bought a couple of beers and started his search.

  
He was pretty sure he’d found the right candidate when the hacker went to the bathroom, so he ordered another beer for him. When Hardison came back, Eliot handed him the beer and nodded to his right.

  
“Girl on your left, orange dress?” The brunette was pretty hot, with curly hair falling on tan shoulders, a short strappy orange dress with a low front cut and some serious come-fuck-me gold pumps on. But the true piece-de-resistance was that she was wearing some classic square cut nerd glasses.

  
Hardison’s eyes moved up and down the girl and Eliot smirked, knowing he had picked the perfect target for his boy. “Go tell her that orange is your favourite colour,” he suggested, and nudged Hardison off his stool in the right direction.

  
Damn he was a good friend.

  
Hardison ambled over to the girl to strike up a conversation and Eliot sat back and watched out of the corner of his eye, just to make sure they hit it off okay. He’d seen the girl raking her eyes all over Hardison earlier, so he wasn’t worried.

  
A sassy little redhead with a killer chest waltzed over to start up a decent attempt at distracting him, but Eliot had something else on his mind tonight. Someone else, rather. After about fifteen minutes, he nodded to Hardison on his way out. The hacker barely acknowledged him, he was too busy trying not to drool. Eliot shook his head and drove away from the bar, feeling satisfied.

  
On the drive back to his house, he thought about what was waiting at home for him. Several scenarios ran through his mind about what would happen, but none of them seemed likely. Although a good few thoughts did make him shift to try and get comfortable when his cock twitched at the idea of a certain thief in his bed for reasons other than...whatever her current reason was.

  
He snuck into his house slowly, certain that if she heard him she’d spook and be out the window in seconds. The hitter crept up the stairs to his bedroom and flicked on the light switch.

  
There, he found a lump in the middle of his king size, perfect for his back whether or not he was injured, nice warm bed.

  
A person sized lump.

  
As a matter of fact, it was a specific thief-person sized lump.

  
“Parker!” he yelled. “What the hell?”

  
“Ahh!” She yelled back, sitting up. “Eliot? What are you doing here?”

  
“What am I – I live here, damn it, Parker, what the hell are you doing in my bed?” He growled a little.

  
She had the covers pulled up to her chin and even though he was sitting up, all he could see of her was her head. Her eyes darted around the room, trying to find a way out. He caught the direction of her gaze to the window, and then to a pile of clothes at the foot of his bed.

  
“Parker,” he growled, trying not to freak out, “please tell me you aren’t naked in my bed.”

  
“I’m not naked in your bed,” she answered automatically.

  
He growled and picked up the shirt he saw on the floor and threw it at her. When he looked down again to grab the rest of her clothes, he saw the black cargos, a pair of black panties and no bra.

  
The image of Parker, still in his bed, in nothing but those panties flashed through his mind unbidden. He shook his head a little and rubbed his eyes.  
“Okay, Parker, let’s try again. Why are you in my bed?”

  
She pulled the covers up, even more, just past her nose so all that’s left is the top of her head and her eyes. “Don’t be angry,” she says softly and he realizes he just went straight into pissed off mode and how much that kind of scared her.

  
So he sighed and softened and sat down on the edge of the bed, not touching her. “I’m not mad, Parker, I’m just confused. Really confused. So, will you tell me?”  
She nodded slowly and let the duvet slide down past her shoulders and for one single second he thought she was going to let it drop to her waist, and he wasn’t sure whether he was more terrified of her doing that or praying that she would.

  
He swallowed hard and shifted a little, his cock twitching inside his jeans at the reminder that Parker was naked not five feet from him.

  
Instead, she tucked the duvet under her arms and sat up with her knees to her chest, so he could only see her arms, shoulders and above, which made him think about how creamy her skin looks and wonder how it feels and – another hard swallow – tastes.

  
“Okay. Remember two weeks ago, when I got knocked out from that little fall I had?” He snorted. The ‘little fall’ was a ten foot drop when some asshole tried to cut her line. He nodded and she continued. “I woke up for a minute when you were carrying me,” she confessed. The hitter listened intently, he had no idea. “And you were warm and you smelled so good and you made me safe and like I was going to be taken care of.”

 

“Okay, but what does this have to do with my bed?”

  
“You can interrupt, or I can tell you, silly,” she answered, smirking at him. He rolled his eyes and let her go on.

  
“And I...I really liked that. I don’t feel like that very often and it’s nice and it’s comfortable and I wanted to feel it again. So at first, I figured I could recreate it. So I came here and then I went and got all your shampoo and your products and stuff and I used them to try and make me smell like you, and then I climbed into my bed to get the warm part and turned on my security system for the safe part with a gun under my pillow.” She pouted. “But it didn’t work. I was warm, but I didn’t smell like you and it just...didn’t feel the same.”

  
“So I thought that maybe I got the smell wrong, so last week I came back here and stole one of your sweaters to smell.”

  
He grumbled a little. She stole his old Dallas Cowboys hoodie and he’d just thought it was in his laundry somewhere.

  
Her tone grew frustrated. “But it didn’t work! So the other day, I had another idea but I didn’t think you’d let me try so I waited til you were out and I came back here and climbed in. And it was perfect. It smells like you and it’s warm and comfy and if I close my eyes it almost feels like you’re holding me again so I can be safe,” she rambled, running her hands on the bedspread.

  
Eliot sighed slowly. It made a lot of sense. Parker spent a long time just bouncing from place to place, hiding from one set of people or running from others, so she probably didn’t get to feel safe, let alone like someone would keep her safe. A small lump formed in his throat when the thought crossed his mind that Parker probably hadn’t been held very much, as a child and certainly not now.

  
“Okay,” he said, “I get that. But uh, why...y’know, without clothes?” He waved his hand at her, gesturing at her body.

  
“What’s wrong with naked?” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug and his navy duvet slipped down from where she’d had it to her waist and...there were Parker’s breasts.  
Eliot slapped his hand over his eyes as fast as he good with a “Jeez, Parker!” but unfortunately he’d still got an eyeful of the little globes that looked like they’d fit perfectly in his palm and no he did not want to play with them and flick her little pink nipples to see what she looked like when she was aroused. Not at all. It wasn’t even something he was going to consider.

  
“Oh, right, sorry,” she shrugged and pulled the covers up. “You can look now. Hey, Eliot, how come you all freak out whenever I’m naked? I don’t get it.”

  
He was too nervous to actually look – he wasn’t sure she wouldn’t try to you know, trick him or something. And his Momma’d raised him with manners and she’d smack him something fierce if she knew he was lookin’ at a girl he wasn’t gettin’ into bed with.

  
“Well, uh, Parker, generally people only get naked in front of each other when they wanna...”

  
“Have sex?” she supplied, just as usual with no bashfulness at all.

  
He gulped. “Yeah. So if you’re not, you’re not supposed to get naked in front of them.” He decided to risk it and finally spread the fingers on his hand to check that she was covered and let out a breath of relief when he saw that the covers were hoisted back up to her shoulders. “You still haven’t explained why you’re naked,” he added.  
“Oh, well, it feels better.” She said.

  
“It feels better?” He repeated, confused for the eightieth time that night.

  
“Yeah, like I can feel how soft the bed is and kinda like I can just burrow into your smell, like you’re all around me.”

  
Good Lord, did the woman have no idea what these images were doing to him? Seriously, he was half hard in his jeans and only because he was clinging to the idea that she did not mean it like that.

  
“Uh-huh...”

  
He must not have sounded very convincing, because the next thing he knew Parker nodded and said very decisively, “you should try it.”

  
The hitter had barely managed out a ‘what?’ when she was in front of him, and oh god naked Parker, naked everywhere, skin and more skin and her hands were sliding down his button up and pushing it off.

  
She then tugged his wife beater up, nice and slow and he wasn’t sure how but she managed not to touch his skin.

  
This should not be erotic, he thought and considered what she’d do if he just leaned over and kissed her, and tried all the things that had flashed through his mind that night. Somehow she had him standing as she flicked open his belt and pushed his jeans and boxers to the floor, still very slow and systematic. His cock was standing at full attention, throbbing and weeping with how insanely turned on he was by her stripping him when she was naked too.

  
She took his hand and led him to the bed, gently pushing him down and pulling the covers up over him. He followed her easily and without complaint, swept up in the complete abstract nature of it, and hey, she was naked, he was naked, so he was pretty much going to follow her off a bridge right now without complaint.

  
Parker moved over to the other side of the bed and crawled in slowly while he dragged his eyes over the planes of her body, curious to explore them otherwise but letting her keep control for fear of scaring her. Instead of initiating anything, she climbed under the covers next to him and placed her head on his chest along with a hand on his stomach. How she seemed to be blissfully unaware of his raging hard on he had no idea, but his arms came up around her automatically, securing her against him.

  
“See, better naked, right?” She asked. When she looked up at him the thief looked bright eyed and kind of innocent, he just nodded mutely. “So...can I stay?” she asked, and while it was ridiculously awkward on his end, she looked so hopeful that he couldn’t deny her.

  
She fell asleep on his chest and he found himself relaxing slowly, falling asleep with the very distinct scents of jasmine and vanilla under his nose.

-x-

  
He woke up and she was gone and if it hadn’t been so bizarre and led to no sex whatsoever, he would’ve thought that he had dreamed it. The memories of the night before plagued him in the shower and he came a little too quickly, jerking off while thinking about what would’ve happened if he had rolled her over like he wanted to.

  
He rolled into the office just after noon to find Hardison wasn’t there yet and Nate was out. Sophie and Parker were talking in the living room, but they stopped as soon as he came in.

  
Cause that wasn’t suspicious.

  
“Ladies,” he drawled, nodding to each of them. He walked into the kitchen to pour himself a cup of tea and returned to the living room.

  
Sophie asked him how he was feeling, and Parker just kind of smiled at him. Nothing too out of the ordinary, so he went with it.

  
Eventually, Nate showed up, followed by Hardison who held out a fist for Eliot to punch as soon as he walked in, grinning like a stupid idiot.

  
“Orange is the best colour ever,” the hacker said, so Eliot smirked and shook his head in response.

  
“No it’s not. Green is better. Orange stands out too much,” Parker replied, having no knowledge of the context of the conversation.

  
Nate came over and started discussing their new client, a guy named Jimmy who had been fired without warning and denied severance pay as well as what the company had previously owed him.

  
Hardison pulled up a bunch of facts that seemed shady about the company, whose main investors were moving a lot of cash around. It seemed Jimmy wasn’t the only one to be fired, so Nate sent Eliot to a bar where a bunch of them seemed to hang out to see what he could find if he pretended to be one of the ones who just got fired.  
It took a couple hours and he wasn’t sure what it all added up to, but he hadn’t been in bed for more than two minutes when Parker was crawling into his bed next to him again. The night before flashed through his mind and he was too tired and sore from the previous beating to put up with having blue balls all night long.

  
“Parker...” he tried to say it gently, but it came out mostly as a growl from exhaustion.

  
“Oh, I thought it was okay with you if I...” she whispered and then climbed back out of the bed.

  
“You can stay,” he said softly. He didn’t want to deny her the comfort she seemed to take from it, and he wasn’t stupid enough to lie to himself and say that it wasn’t nice to have a warm body to curl up with at the end of the day. “But you have to wear underwear.” He amended. If she was going to sleep over, there were going to be rules. And clothes. “And a bra.”

  
The hitter could practically hear her pouting. “I don’t have a bra on right now,” she said. He groaned a little, the image of Parker spread out on his bed with just her panties on now much more vivid that he knew exactly what her breasts looked like, the perfect peak of her nipples and the shade of her aureoles.

  
“A shirt then. But if you’re staying, there’s rules,” he grumbled, feeling rather firm on this particular point. “You have to have underwear and either a bra or a shirt on when you sleep here, and you have to be here in the morning when I wake up.” Rule one and two. He hated the idea of her sneaking off in the middle of the night, especially considering he only slept for about two hours each night. Waking up with a woman in his arms was a treat that he rarely indulged in, and he figured if he did the night time curl up for her, she could do the morning wake up one for him.

  
She was silent for a minute and then nodded, which he could barely make out in the darkness. He heard clothes shuffling around and then she climbed back into bed. She laid down next to him without touching him, more hesitant than she had been the night before which made him wonder what changed. He rolled his eyes and lifted an arm while muttering, “C’mere, you,” and she quickly slid over and snuggled up against him. He turned to the side and spooned up behind her, their legs tangling together. The hitter fell asleep with his nose in her hair and his arm around her waist.

  
He woke up closer to three hours later and admitted silently that it wasn’t just Parker who was benefitting from this...arrangement. He slept longer when she was in the bed with him than he normally did alone, and he woke up with the smell of her hair under him.

  
And okay, yeah, some serious morning wood pressed up behind her that made him want to slide between her legs and initiate a nice long round of sleepy morning sex, but that wasn’t what she was here for and he knew this was about something more innocent for her – she was here because he made her feel like she was safe and taken care of, and he would do that for her.

  
He slid out of bed carefully and froze when she mumbled something. He stopped, and watched as Parker rolled over and snuggled into his pillow where he had just been in, smiling at the picture she made. The straps of her tank top were falling down around her shoulders, and the duvet was scrunched up at her chest. She looked adorable and gorgeous all at once; innocent and sexy.

  
Shaking his head to stop the direction his thoughts were taking, Eliot made coffee and went down to his basement for a good workout. Roughly an hour and a half later, he came up and grabbed a second cup of coffee. He read the paper and did a quick walkthrough of his garden to get an idea of where he would need to water later and then went back inside to start on breakfast. He found Parker sitting at the kitchen table, dressed in the clothes she had been wearing the night before, drinking a glass of water.  
“Breakfast?” she asked with a happy glint in her eyes that made him smile. It was nice to have his cooking appreciated.

  
“What would you like?”

  
“Do you have maple syrup?” Her feet seemed to be bouncing on the floor.

  
“Yeah. Pancakes?” Eliot was surprised when she shook her head.

  
“French toast!”

  
He chuckled and started pulling eggs, milk and fruit out of the fridge. He whipped up the batter pretty quickly. She seemed content to just sit and watch him, and they fell into a comfortable silence as he cooked. He put together two nice plates of French toast with bacon and fruit and she attacked it like she was starving. He smirked and started in on his own food.

  
After breakfast, she tried to help with the dishes – which resulted in her breaking a glass, his coffee cup and both plates, so he told her he’d take care of it.  
She stood awkwardly at the edge of the kitchen. He sighed. “Yes, Parker?”

  
“I uh, didn’t bring any clothes with me, so I’m just gonna head home and shower and stuff. I’ll see you later?” She seemed kind of hopeful at the last bit and he nodded, smiling a little to reassure her. The huge mega-watt grin he got in return made it totally worth it.

  
“Thank you,” she whispered, kissing his cheek before she skirted off. He wasn’t sure why she didn’t just use the front door, but then, it was Parker.

  
This somehow developed into a routine for them. She’d show up just as he seemed to be falling into bed and they’d fall asleep wrapped around each other. He’d wake up, exercise and do whatever until she woke up and he would make them both breakfast. Some days, he even crawled back into bed with her after he showered and just held her until she woke up. The hitter wasn’t stupid; he knew that as he’d gotten used to having her around that his feelings had formed into a strong affection for her, though she still managed to unknowingly incite pangs of lust in him.

  
But the thief never incited anything that indicated she had anything more than a platonic relationship in mind, and he certainly wasn’t going to push. He’s not sure what it said about him that he would rather go to sleep holding her than having sex with another woman, or that he’ll take this if it’s all of her that he can have, but he tries not to dwell on it or overanalyze it.

  
About a month into this weird little routine, she stopped coming over. It wasn’t that she came over every night, because sometimes they worked all night or she was just too tired to come back from her place, or one of them was working and the other wasn’t, or whatever, but the longest she’d been away was two nights in a row since he’d told her she was welcome to sleep with him whenever she liked.

  
So when she didn’t come over for three nights in a row, it made him curious and a little grumpy (or grumpier than usual). After the fourth night, he got downright worried.  
It was one of their rare handfuls of a few days off, and he’d stopped in at Nate’s everyday to check in on everybody. Hardison had been using the days to update all the computers in the office, Sophie had been hunting for a new play with the local theatre troups and Nate seemed to be relaxing, reading and doing whatever he felt like. But Parker had checked in once or twice, but was scarcely seen after that. Hardison shrugged and said he’d assumed she was out stealing stuff, and Sophie and Nate insisted that she was fine.

  
He’d tried to be comforted by that and gone back home to dig in the garden, especially since his eggplant was looking rather healthy and he needed to check the tomatoes to make sure they were properly spaced, but he kept finding little reminders of the thief everywhere. He now had three flavours of ice cream in his freezer, cereal that he wouldn’t eat if you held a gun to his head on his shelves and fortune cookies in the pantry. He’d started buying Parker’s bathroom products after she brought a couple over with her, and he’d quickly memorized her preferred brands of shampoo, conditioner, shaving cream and body wash – which was, he learned, the source of the grapefruit portion of her smell. There was a green toothbrush next to his blue one in the holder on his sink, and a pair of hairbrushes after he’d bought a second one she could use.  
She started coming down into the basement with him for his work out some days, and she’d been teaching him a little bit of yoga while he taught her some more techniques she could use to defend herself. So he bought some stretch exercise bands, a pair of yoga mats, and an exercise ball that he kept in the corner. He wasn’t too fond of yoga; he liked the slow burn it gave his muscles but found that he had a hard time ‘flowing’ from position to position, as Parker called it, and he wasn’t all that flexible. Parker of course, could bend every which way, and didn’t that just set off the sex images in his mind again as he thought of several poses he’d like to improve upon by having her do them while he thrust into her.

  
She had a handful of sweaters and two harnesses in his closet (just in case, she insisted) as well as a pair of slippers. He’d cleared out some drawer space where she kept a couple changes of clothes, because over the last two weeks she’d taken to just coming straight home with him after they finished with the job for the night.  
Parker had surprised him one day by producing a sketch pad and a few pencils and sketching while he cooked. After that, she often left her sketch pad in the kitchen. Most of the time she drew animals, or objects, but he thought he’d seen her drawn people once or twice.

  
All of these little things scattered around the house made him think of her and wonder why she’d disappeared. Did she no longer enjoy sleeping with him? Maybe she had found someone else to curl up with at night, though the thought made his stomach turn.

  
In the end, he just hopped into his truck and drove over to her warehouse, just to check on her. He knocked, but didn’t hear an answer. Punching in the key code for the garage-style door, it opened and her lights flicked on to reveal Parker, curled up in her bed.

  
He walked over slowly, making sure to make enough noise that she would hear him – though he figured since he had known the code, she’d know it was one of the team.  
As he got closer, he noticed she had a laptop curled up in bed with her, and there was a bag of fortune cookies on the bed, along with a bottle of water, a closed box of Rocket O’s cereal and a bag of Chips Ahoy! Cookies with the tray pulled out and half the cookies missing. Her back was to him, so he slowly moved into her line of view. As he passed, he noticed some kind of cartoon was on the laptop. When he moved to the side of the bed that would allow her to see him, he saw the DVD cover on the ground. Pocahontas. There were a stack of Disney DVDs on the ground next to it. He looked down at the thief to see she was wearing the Dallas Cowboy sweater she had stolen and never returned, and her stuffed bunny was being clutched to her chest.

  
“Eliot?” She whispered softly, reaching out to pause the film. He sat down on the edge of the bed. The way she was quiet made him think she might be sick, so he held a hand out to her forehead and brushed strands of her hair behind her ear. “What are you doing here?”

  
“I missed my breakfast buddy,” he answered, smiling softly. She was warm, but not feverish-warm, just a little above normal warm.

  
A grin broke out over her face, and even though she looked tired, his breath still caught as the thought of how beautiful she is crossed his mind for the eight millionth time.  
Then she frowned a little. “I have my period,” she announced, as if she were telling him she was blonde. He sighed, assuming Parker had never learned that girls generally keep those kinds of things to themselves. Then she shrugged. “Sophie told me that boys don’t like periods, which is dumb but whatever, so I figured you didn’t want me to come over when I had mine, so I just stayed here.”

  
Eliot nodded and then sat down next to her on her bed. It’d been a long time since he’d really had to deal with a girl on her period – since Aimee, really, and he was man enough to admit that it kind of freaked him out. One week a month when a perfectly nice girl becomes a total bitch who is overemotional, constantly tired and wants to eat nothing but chocolate...it was pretty terrifying.

  
“Do you need anything?” He asked, praying like hell she said no because as much as he cared about Parker he didn’t think he could go to the drug store and buy her tampons. He’d much rather fight a bunch of Israeli soldiers or the Yakuza.

  
“My tummy hurts,” she whispered, so quiet he almost missed it. He nodded and moved around the back of her bed and untied his boots, sliding in behind her. The hitter propped his head up and wrapped an arm around her, slowly rubbing her stomach in circles gently, trying not to press down hard or anything.  
She ‘mmed’ and snuggled back against him, and then unpaused the film. “Pocahontas, huh?” He whispered.

  
“I like the raccoon,” she answered. He chuckled and watched the film with her, switching at one point to rub her back instead of her stomach. He wasn’t sure when she fell asleep, but when the movie ended he kissed her forehead and closed the laptop, taking it off the bed so she wouldn’t break it. He wrote her a note telling her to come to his place later that night because he had something he wants to show her.

  
She showed up when he was sitting up in bed reading his novel and trying not to worry that she might’ve been too sore or bloaty or bitchy or whatever women get to come over. But she walked into his bedroom and waves hi. He wondered what window it was that she used to get in his house all the time, because he still hadn’t figured that out yet.

  
He caught her when she was about to start pulling her clothes off and pulled her into his living room. There was a brand new LCD TV hooked up to a DVD player. Her face split into a grin that got wider when he pointed to the shelf on the wall that he had moved his books off of and filled with movies – mostly Disney with a few others that he figured she’d like. “And that,” he said, pointing to the stand the TV and DVD player were on, “has wheels, so I can roll it into the bedroom whenever you want,” he said. She clapped a couple of times, jumping up and down and then jumped on him in a massive hug.

  
“Okay, okay,” he laughed, putting her down slowly. It was so worth getting rid of his smaller television and forcing Hardison to help him set it all up so it would be easy to move it between the bedroom and the living room. He just told the hacker he wanted a new TV, and kicked him out before he went to buy the movies. He made sure to pay cash too, because he didn’t trust Hardison not to check his credit cards.

  
She moved over to the shelf to examine the selection he’d put together for her and he stepped in behind her, one hand on her shoulder. “You don’t ever have to hide from me, Parker. Anything you do at your place, you can do here, okay?”

  
She thought for a minute. “Can Bunny come?”

  
He grinned. “Sure.”

  
Parker nodded enthusiastically and he turned and headed for bed. “You comin’?” he called behind him.

  
“In a minute!” she said. He shrugged. He’d missed the little thief in the days that she’d been gone and it occurred to him that he’d sunk deeper and deeper into the feelings trap that this little thief had wound him in. If he kept it up, she’d run off with his heart without ever knowing.

-x-

  
She came back to sleeping at his place on a regular basis, though he knew she still took naps at her place. There were only three major changes.

  
First, Parker seemed to be a lot...nicer? Happier? More appreciative? They’d been curling up together to sleep for almost two months now, but Parker seemed to touch him a lot more ever since they’d gone through the whole period thing. She’d nuzzle his chest at night and mumble about how good he smelled, or she’d squeeze his bicep when she moved past him. If they sat down, usually with her sketching and him reading, she’d throw her legs over his, entangling them. The thief would close her eyes and moan softly when she particularly liked whatever he’d cook for breakfast. Their workouts seemed to much more hands on, with her adjusting his postures by moving him and she’d push his hips into position or put her hands on the muscles that he was supposed to be squeezing. She also insisted that whenever they worked on self defence that they work more on grappling and take downs. More and more of his showers after their workout sessions were freezing cold.

  
Second, Parker’s underwear got a lot sexier. In a way, he missed the cotton underwear, sports bras and tank tops that were so naturally Parker that she’d worn before. On the other, he was a red blooded man, and the display that the lace panties in different cuts and colours – navy boy shorts cut underwear that made him clench his fists to stop from grabbing her ass and squeezing; red satin that slid against him when they cuddled; a black thong that was basically two small triangles tied together at the sides; push-up bras that made his mouth water with the way they made her breasts sit up and created deep cleavage valleys that he really wanted to explore.

  
Third, she started wearing less clothing. Granted, the weather got a lot warmer, but Parker seemed to find clothing at all a nuisance. So she spent the majority of the time at his house with just her seemingly endless catalogue of Victoria Secret numbers. One morning he made waffles and after she smothered hers in whipped cream, accidentally spilling some ontop of her cleavage. He didn’t think his jeans had ever been so tight, so he excused himself, saying he had errands to run and practically ran out of his own damn house.

  
Eliot constantly had to remind himself that this was Parker. If she had been any other girl on the planet, he would’ve thrown her down on the kitchen floor, licked every bit of whipped cream off her, stripped her down and probably covered her in whipped cream again just to tease her (and because whipped cream never tasted better than when it was licked off a woman’s body) before taking her hard and screwing her senseless.

  
But this was Parker, who probably didn’t realize she was driving him insane by smelling so good and looking so tempting all the time. And he wanted her to be comfortable at his house because he liked having her around. He was seriously considering finding someone else to help with his frustrations, but somehow other women didn’t seem remotely appealing.

  
Fortunately, they had a job and Parker had to wear clothes for a job. Then Nate needed her to flirt with the mark while Hardison planted bugs in his apartment, so Sophie had her in this tiny little jean skirt and a tight v-neck t-shirt that hinted at cleavage but didn’t really show it, along with a pair of small heels that Parker was teetering on slightly, along with a little bit of dark eye makeup and hair that was the sexy kind of messy. The mark was eating out of the palm of her hand and Eliot, who was bartending to keep an eye on her, had front row seats to the whole show.

  
He distracted himself with the hot Latina at the end of the bar who had a devil-in-a-red-dress vibe working for her, but could still hear Parker flirting through his comm. Parker was a little giggly and Sophie’s coaching had obviously paid off. “That’s amazing,” she gushed, “I can’t believe you live in Tokyo. That’s so cool!”  
The hitter snorted at that and had to cover it up with a cough. The real Parker didn’t like Tokyo much because being a decently tall blonde, Parker stood out like a sore thumb in Tokyo, which made it harder to do her job.

  
By the time Eliot finally got home, he was rather grumpy. The Latina had left her number but he didn’t care and Parker had followed the mark home. He wasn’t too worried, knew she had drugs in her clutch that she could knock him out with and that she had no plans to sleep with the guy, but it still made him uncomfortable. So he grabbed a beer and flipped around until he found a hockey game to try and take his mind off of things.

  
After the hockey game he picked his novel back up and was reading on the couch when Parker came in. She slammed the door and stomped over to him, still wearing her outfit from the bar. It was close to 3AM and Eliot was planning on heading to bed soon. She stomped over, grabbed his book (and kindly put his bookmark in it before she tossed it onto the coffee table) then took his hand and more or less dragged him to the bedroom. She pushed him down so he was sitting on the edge of the bed and very, very confused.

  
“What the hell, Parker?” He asked, wondering what had caused the sudden mood. What if that jerk had put his hands on her or had kissed her and tried for more and he should have stayed with her to keep her safe and -

  
“I’m mad at you,” she answered, then reached down and yanked his shirt off. Rather roughly, he would add. She even scratched one of his arms before she threw it across the room. “I didn’t like it when you flirted with that girl,” she glared down at him, before reaching down and pulling her own top off, much slower and more gently than she had been with him.

  
“I was just-” he started but she held a hand over his mouth and leaned down so that not only were her breasts pushed up just below his mouth, but he got a really good look at the bra she was wearing. The cups were covered in army camouflage print and topped with dark green lace. The two cups were pulled together and tied with a little black ribbon that wound through them, a little like the laces on a boot. It pulled them together and up so that it had the effect of a push up bra without actually giving her fake cleavage.

  
“Shush.” She demanded and it was clear that she was taking over here. “I have been putting all this work into getting your attention and wearing all this weird underwear for you because boys are supposed to like that and I spilled stuff on me and I touch you all the time and I compliment you and I just don’t know what to do anymore!”

  
The hitter’s head span. Well…both of them, actually. She wiggled out of the little jean skirt to reveal that her underwear matched the top, two pieces of camouflage cloth tied together with ribbons at the sides and his fingers itched to tug on them. But he tried to process everything she’d said so far. Everything he’d chalked up to Parker just being innocent and herself and not knowing that she was teasing him…was intentional?

  
“So, here’s all I’ve got left, Eliot. I’d ask Sophie, but I don’t think she knows that I sleep here and I don’t know what they’d think of that and I wanted to talk to you but I couldn’t and so I bought these,” she gestured to the army-print lingerie, “because I thought you’d like them and I know you were in the Navy, not the army but they don’t make Navy underwear or if they do I couldn’t find it,” she rambled and he wasn’t entirely sure he’d even caught most of it, let alone all of what she said.

  
“What?” he said, now more confused than ever.

  
“Do you,” she said slowly, trying to emphasize her words, “want to have sex with me or not?”

  
He blinked, processing slowly as he looked up and down her gorgeous body, wearing only the underwear that she had picked out specifically with him in his mind (and had nothing else done it, that alone would have made his dick stand up and pay attention). Everything suddenly clicked in his mind and he surged up, grabbing her around the waist with one arm and grabbing her head at the back of her neck with the other. “Oh god yes,” he whispered and then crushed his mouth to hers.

  
She moaned under him, pressing her body against him eagerly. One of her hands slipped into his hair, tugging gently, and the other gripped his arm, using it to pull herself further into him.

  
He fell back against the bed and rolled to be on top of her, one leg sliding between hers. She arched and rubbed herself against his thigh, grinding down on his jeans. His tongue swept through her mouth hungrily, taking everything he could, weeks of frustration built on frustration.

  
When he finally needed air and he pulled back only to start kissing a trail down her neck. His hands reached up and squeezed both of her breasts together through the bra, which was thin enough that he could feel her perfectly. He nipped at the spot between her collarbone and her neck, then sucked hard enough to leave a mark. She moaned and her head fell back, giving him better access and pushing her chest up into his as he kneaded her breasts. Parker gripped his shoulders a little, bringing one of her legs up to rub her thigh against the bulge at his crotch, his cock straining to be freed and he ground down against her leg to get a little extra friction.

  
He kicked and licked at the bite mark to soothe it and kissed his way down to her breasts, which were heaving a little from his heavy breathing. He grabbed one end of the ribbon tying the cups together between his teeth and tugged so the tie came loose. Parker’s breasts spilled out of the bra and she pushed it off, throwing it somewhere in the room that neither noticed. Eliot latched onto her right nipple and sucked gently at first, licking and teasing her nipple into a hardened point. When she moaned and used one hand to press his face against her, he moved over to draw her other nipple into his mouth, increasing the pressure.

  
“Yesss,” she hissed as he used one hand to twist and gently tug on the nipple his mouth wasn’t sucking on. Her hands pulled down his chest slowly, and pushed him backwards instead of rolling him over. He was surprised, so he fell back on the bed as she climbed on top, his feet hitting the pillows.

  
Eliot didn’t care though, because she kissed him, tongue tangled up with his as she straddled him and rubbed her underwear over his crotch. She pulled back and nipped at his ear, then sucked on his neck and ran her hands up and down his chest and arms, squeezing every few seconds.

  
Parker unbuttoned his jeans, unzipped them and pushed them down past his knees, allowing him to kick them off onto the floor. Using one hand she gripped him through his boxers, squeezing his base. His head fell back a little at the feel of her hand on him, and the thief slid her hand inside the opening to stroke him slowly, teasingly, just dragging her fingertips up and down his shaft without touching the head.

  
He moaned a little and arched up into her hand, trying to get a little more contact. She grinned and took her hand out of his boxers only to pull them down to his ankles. He barely registered the movement before she took the tip of his cock into her mouth, sucking gently and licking at the slit. He groaned and reached for her hair, gently holding her hair. He didn’t want to hurt her, so he quickly let go and gripped the sheets as she took a little more into his mouth.

  
He’d never really thought about it, but she surprised him with how good she was. Her cheeks hollowed out as she increased pressure, and she took more than half his dick into her mouth. One handle cradled and fondled his balls, and he clenched the sheets underneath him when she hummed a little, the vibrations moving up his cock. Her other hand came down and gripped his base, rubbing and squeezing in time with her head bobbing up and down on him. Groaning, he pushed her off of him and onto her back.

  
“Wha-” she started to say but he kissed her, a little gentler, this time, and sucked on her bottom lip.

  
“Don’t want this to be over too soon, darlin’,” he whispered and then kissed his way down to her panties, which he was thinking were definitely going on the list of his favourite pairs. He pulled the strings on either side and pulled them down her legs, running his fingers up and down her calves, massaging lightly. Her eyes were dark as they followed his movements.

  
Eliot kissed his way back up the thief’s legs, gently pushing them apart as he made his way to the apex of her thighs. He heard her breath catch as he nuzzled into her wet curls. In the past he’d preferred girls who waxed, but going natural was so much more...Parker, and it turned him on more than it had in the past.

  
He flicked his tongue out and brushed it over her clit, grinning when she shuddered. He took a few more small licks watching as she gasped under him. He gripped her hips in his hands and spread her legs a little further apart before switching to faster and harder licks, alternating between taking swipes at her opening, flicking his tongue inside and sucking on her clit. Eliot noticed her hands were clenched in the sheets, the way his had been earlier and smirked, grabbing on hand and sliding into his hair. “Such a pretty little pussy,” he mumbled, “you taste so good baby.”

  
She tugged a little and arched against him as he got more aggressive, sucking on her clit harder. Her pushed one finger inside of her and gently probed at her walls, pulling back and pushing back in slowly, teasingly. Parker whimpered and he added a second finger, curling his fingers up to hit her g spot and press up into it. He started scissoring his fingers so that one would spread her as the other pushed on her g spot, and her hand tightened in her hair.

  
He felt her walls start to tense and smirked, increasing the pressure of his mouth on her clit. He added a third finger and twisted his hand sharply and she came, arching up into his face so hard she probably could’ve broken his nose, and his little thief cried out as she spasmed under him.

  
Eliot grinned with pride and moved back up her body, reaching over to the bedside table and digging his hand in the drawer for a condom. Parker’s face was buried in his neck as she panted and came down from her orgasm. He ripped open the foil packet and quickly slipped it down his cock, which was less strained than it had been when she was sucking on him.

  
He kissed her shoulders and she moaned softly at the feeling of his hands on her hips, tilting her up for him to enter her. “Please Eliot, need you,” she gasped and grabbed his face, yanking him down to her for a hard kiss. He could still taste her in his mouth as her lips moved against his, and she broke away from him to moan softly as he pushed into her slowly. He waited for her to adjust until she was rubbing her hips up against him, encouraging him to move.

  
He pulled back slowly and pushed forward again, and she squirmed against him. She pushed on his shoulders and he rolled off of her, concerned for a second and then relieved when she climbed up and sank down on his cock, her pussy squeezing tight around him.

  
A groan fell from his lips as she started rocking against him, sliding up and down as her hips moved in circles. He grabbed her hips and bent his knees with his feet flat against the bed to use as leverage for him to push up into her. She gasped and leaned forward a bit, and he could feel his pelvic bone hitting her clit.

  
Parker rode him relentlessly, grinding down on him when she came down, bouncing up and down as fast as she could. “Need...you...harder...” she gasped, rocking against him. He smirked.

  
“I can do that,” he whispered back and caught her hips, pulling her off him and back onto the bed. He pushed until she realized what he was trying to do and she rolled over onto her knees, looking back over at him like six different types of sin, with her hair a total mess and her lips swollen.

  
Using one knee to nudge her legs father apart, he positioned himself behind her and grabbed her ass, squeezing for good measure. He pushed into her hard and didn’t wait until he started slamming away.

  
Her cries grew louder and louder as he let himself go a little, taking her fast and pounding into her as hard as he could. She pressed back against him to meet his thrusts, moaning nearly every time. He pushed her shoulders down so her body was angled under his ministrations and could tell he was hitting her g-spot by the way her little moans became gasps of pleasure.

  
She clenched down on him again, chanting “oh god Eliot, yes,” as he leaned over her, putting a bit of his weight on her back and using his free hand to thumb her clit.  
“That’s it Parker,” he whispered into her ear, sucking on the lobe. “Come for me.” She groaned and let go, her inner walls clamping down on him and squeezing as she came with a shudder throughout her body.

  
He flipped her over easily again, sliding back into her. “Wanna see your face when I come,” he groaned, resuming sliding into her. He picked up with a rhythm that was near vicious as he fucked her, and she met each of his thrusts after wrapping her legs around his waist, with her heels digging into his butt and egging him on. Her hands slid up his back and scratched down slowly and he moaned her name as he sunk into her a few last times, coming with blood roaring in his ears.

  
He collapsed on top of her at first and she stroked his hair, cradling him between her thighs. After a minute or so he pulled out gently and she whimpered a little as he slid out. He got up to get rid of the condom and came back to find her under the covers, looking absolutely gorgeous and thoroughly fucked.

  
He was a little too tired for male pride, so his just slid in next to her and wrapped his arms around her. As he pulled her against him and she nuzzled into the crook of his neck and shoulder, her thought about how the mixture of jasmine, vanilla and grapefruit was definitely his favourite smell.  
-x-

**Author's Note:**

> This work is complete. There will not be any additional chapters or sequels, it is only a one shot. I would however re-direct you to 'Like We Used To", my Parker/Eliot fic that was a baby and is now a gigantic elephant.


End file.
